Dixon spins but wins after resisting Rahal’s charge

After being spun around on the opening lap of Saturday’s Brickyard Grand Prix at Indianapolis, Scott Dixon blended savvy driving and strategy perfectly to take his first IndyCar win of the season in a thrilling sprint to the finish as pole-winner Graham Rahal hunted him down.

Dixon was already up against it as he started 15th, then got caught up in a first-lap incident that had direct implications in the IndyCar championship chase.

Light contact between championship leader Alex Palou and rookie Marcus Armstrong tipped the latter around at turn 11. Almost simultaneously, Romain Grosjean made contact with Dixon, spinning the Ganassi racer. While Grosjean got stuck behind Armstrong’s spun car, Josef Newgarden was left with nowhere to go and landed on top of the rookie’s machine.

Dixon stayed on the lead lap and pitted during the ensuing Safety Car intervention to discard the primary compound tyres he started on. Meanwhile, Newgarden dropped off the lead lap and would finish 25th, a near-fatal blow to his already slim hopes of taking a third IndyCar Series title.

Meanwhile Devlin DeFrancesco, who started a career-best fifth, performed a daredevil first-corner pass to take the lead from Rahal. The RLL driver soon regained first lap and held off his team mate Christian Lundgaard early on. But it soon became clear that Dixon, who was maximising every tank of fuel and every set of alternate-compound tyres he was given, would be a genuine factor for the win once the final round of pit stops began.

Dixon came in for his final stop with 26 laps to go and emerged with a six-second advantage over Rahal who came in four laps later. Dixon had to work hard to make his tyres last to the end as both drivers also had to negotiate backmarkers in front of them.

Despite a superb late push from Rahal, Dixon gained enough time on the penultimate lap to ultimately hold on and win the race by less than half a second.

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Rahal 36 laps, the most of any driver, but missed out on what would have been his first victory in over six years.

Pato O’Ward led the McLaren team with a third-place finish, ahead of Lundgaard, who slipped to fourth after a slow penultimate pit stop caused by a problem on his refuelling rig. Alexander Rossi rounded out the top five while Felix Rosenqvist in the third McLaren retired from the race with a mechanical issue.

Will Power finished sixth while Palou in seventh behind him extended his championship lead with three races remaining. Palou, whose bombshell rejection of McLaren has been the talk of the paddock over the past 36 hours, has a chance to clinch his second IndyCar Series championship as soon as the upcoming Gateway 500 on August 27th.

Dixon’s victory moves him ahead of Newgarden for second in the championship table. He is now 101 points behind his team mate, with Newgarden trailing by 105.

Scott McLaughlin, Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson rounded out the top ten. Linus Lundqvist, in his second IndyCar start, was the highest-finishing rookie in 12th. Grosjean had a strong recovery drive after his involvement in the first-lap incident, but his car stopped on the final lap and he dropped to 18th.

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Brickyard GP race results

Position	Car	Driver	Team	Engine
1	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi	Honda
2	15	Graham Rahal	RLL	Honda
3	5	Pato O’Ward	McLaren	Chevrolet
4	45	Christian Lundgaard	RLL	Honda
5	7	Alexander Rossi	McLaren	Chevrolet
6	12	Will Power	Penske	Chevrolet
7	10	Alex Palou	Ganassi	Honda
8	3	Scott McLaughlin	Penske	Chevrolet
9	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti	Honda
10	8	Marcus Ericsson	Ganassi	Honda
11	21	Rinus VeeKay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
12	60	Linus Lundqvist	Meyer Shank	Honda
13	26	Colton Herta	Andretti	Honda
14	30	Jack Harvey	RLL	Honda
15	06	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank	Honda
16	18	David Malukas	Coyne/HMD	Honda
17	77	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
18	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti	Honda
19	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti	Honda
20	20	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
21	78	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
22	51	Sting Ray Robb	Coyne/RWR	Honda
23	14	Santino Ferrucci	Foyt	Chevrolet
24	11	Marcus Armstrong	Ganassi	Honda
25	2	Josef Newgarden	Penske	Chevrolet
26	55	Benjamin Pedersen	Foyt	Chevrolet
27	6	Felix Rosenqvist	McLaren	Chevrolet

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IndyCar

• McLaren left reeling after “abysmal” Barber weekend
• McLaughlin and Power put Penske back on top with one-two
• McLaughlin denies Power pole position to lead Penske one-two in Barber
• Newgarden admits he “failed my team miserably” over disqualification
• Ghiotto gets 11th hour call-up for IndyCar debut at Barber

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